Saturday, 22 August 2015

Bright orange and yellow summer sun motif

This design was drawn originally with Anchor colours in my program. Use anchor threads to get the closest match. I used a conversion chart to get the DMC numbers.

Hello everyone,

Since its the summer holidays this week I thought I'd share a cute and easy sun motif. With whole stitches only and two colours this design is really quick to sew. Imagine it would make a super cute patch for a number of holiday bags, like your sunglasses case or an identifying tag for your beach tote.

A few weeks ago my lovely boyfriend and I went to the beach, it was a lovely sunny day. Being of a very pale complexion my boyfriend smothered me in sun cream every hour. I told him it may be a little bit overkill but I carried on to the sand anyway.

I think I proved him right when I came off of the beach caked in sand. I think I looked like a breaded piece of chicken but with sand instead of bread. It took ages to wash off but on the brighter side I did not get burnt. :s

Wednesday, 19 August 2015

An interview with Riku, a Hama bead artist from Riku's raving Hama Revolution

Hello everyone,
This week I had the opportunity to interview Riku from Riku's raving Hama Revolution
Riku is a very talented Hama bead artist and I really recommend checking out their Facebook page which can be found here: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Rikus-raving-Hama-Revolution/713045415459992
The page is full of pictures of projects big and small which are sure to bring a smile to your face, particularly to fans of games, cartoons and all things cute.

So with no further ado lets get this interview underway:

Gemma: Hi Riku it is lovely to get this opportunity to ask you a few questions. My first question is how did you get into making projects with Hama beads?

Riku: I got into hama beads when I was 12 years old by a odd random chance of fate as my mum got a big huge tub of beads with every colour of the rainbow in it ...needless to say at first I would only make tiny tiny projects...maybe a star and even then I couldn't iron anything alone since I wasn't very good at ironing in general... I would try and introduce as many of my friends to hama as I could but they just said its boring and lame ....so I continued to learn how to improve all self-taught (I never had a hama teacher)

Gemma: Do you have a favourite project you have worked on?

Riku: I have a few favourite projects is the Pokemon montage I had made clearly to celebrate the release of Pokemon alpha/omega, ruby/sapphire on 3DS (I'm a huge pokemon fan) my second favourite is a project I'm currently still working on. So far its taken me 3 months to even get to the point I am (26 peg boards and over 50,000 beads ) so far and I'm only half way through making it....its gonna be the biggest project I've ever, ever made and I dread to think the amounts of hours I have yet to put into it, I'm a huge fan of FF10 so it was my little tribute to it as 1 of my favourite Final Fantasy of alllll time.

Here is the final Fantasy work in progress. Riku has even gone to the trouble of making the Japanese characters into hama beads, now that's attention to detail! Also in this work in progress shot is an opportunity to take a peek at just how many boards this piece of work spans, this is an enormous piece of work, as Riku mentions its currently over 50,000 beads! (I think I'd need a lie down after all that)

For further updates on this piece and other works be sure to like Rikus Facebook page. I can't wait to see what its like when its done.

Here is the epic Pokémon themed piece, I can see why this is Rikus favourite piece so far. Theres so much detail here and it looks massive!

Gemma: There are loads of cute projects on your Facebook page and some of them are quite large how do you keep yourself motivated to finish them? Particularly when there is a large area to fill with one colour?

Riku: I love working on huge hama projects as for me hama is very very therapeutic and it helps me to just forget everything. I know some people joke saying "how do you have the patience" but to me I just zone out....music and binge watching on Netflix helps a lot when you got to struggles with the never ending battle of shading.

Gemma: You know that's just how I end up getting through filling in a really large area of cross stitch. I think in these times having music is the best way to get through.

Gemma: How did you come up with the name for your Facebook page?

Riku: I was struggling with a name for a lot of time, at first only my closest friends on my personal profile page even knew I did hama (I kept it as a little secret) as I didn't think it was the same art worthy as say drawing, but over the years I know hama is a much more demanding skill to learn, a friend mentioned to me that all my art I'd done was very different to your average hama artist. I liked to be brave and make huge projects so I thought hama revolution would be a good name since revolution means change.

The following questions are from my special guest interviewer Chloe, my beautiful niece who is just starting to learn the art of Hama beads after getting a kit for Christmas. She is very excited to be able to ask an experienced Hama bead artist a couple of questions.

Chloe: Hi Riku, When you have finished a Hama bead project how do you like to display the finished piece?

Riku: Sadly when ever I finish a piece it normally gets put under the sofa in a art wallet. I dont really frame massive pieces as I sell most of them but with my little mini hama projects they are perfect to frame and very easy to do it unlike midi beads which can be difficult to frame due to the thickness of the beads.

Chloe: Do you have any tips and tricks that you know now that you wish you knew when you were just starting out making Hama bead creations?

Riku: For a new hama beader I would say if you're gonna iron a piece the iron must be on the hottest temperature it can possibly go otherwise the beads wont melt and wont become a solid piece of flat plastic....and iron it on both sides (this is everyones mistaken they never iron both sides which leads to fragile pieces) always use a neat new piece of ironing paper as old paper can because creased and folded ..if you use creased old paper for ironing it will imprint on the beads whilst you iron them, timing is a key thing for hama, you cant rush a ironing job.

Gemma: Thank you so much Riku for taking the time to tell us all about your fabulous art pieces.

Chloe: Thank you Riku, especially for the ironing tip, I'll remind Gemma to iron both sides next time. :)

Wednesday, 12 August 2015

Top Cosplays I found at Yorkshire Cosplay Convention 2015

Hello everyone, last weekend I went to the Yorkshire cosplay Convention at the Magna Center in Sheffield. I had a lovely time and met a whole bunch of lovely friendly cosplayers, saw lots of lovely events and took a whole bunch of Photos.

So without further ado here are a few of the best cosplays I saw on the day. However this should not be treated as a definitive list of best cosplays because Im fairly sure in an event with so many people I could not have possibly seen everyones cosplays, so if you were there and I missed you out I do hope I get to see you and your fabulous cosplay next time.

If you are here on this list and would like me to link to your cosplay page with your picture feel free to comment and I'll add the link. :)

No Face from Spirited Away

This Cosplayer even went around giving chocolate coins to people and didn't speak a word just like No Face does in the film.

Beymax from Big Hero 6

This is a truly Epic cosplay, looks very hot though. You won't believe but this one was actually full sized and taller than I am. (though Im a little 5ft 5') The Beymax head is a hat so the person inside can pop their head out when they need to see. That's a really useful design feature. One problem with big cosplays like this is sometimes people can't see too well.

Vault Dweller from Fallout

Just look at this Fallout Vault suit. I just love the attention to detail on this one. You can't see it in the picture but he has the vault number on the back of the suit too.

Vaas from Farcry

This cosplay is completed by the well practiced pose by this cosplayer, the water bottle is a nice touch and probably came in very handy in a hot convention hall.

Giovanni from the Pokémon series

This cosplay even comes with a cute little Persian plushie. Now that's some attention to detail.

Wayne and Garth from Waynes World

Who can top the awesomeness of this pair from Waynes world? I can't believe they even managed to track down the right T shirt for Garth. Fantastic.

Teto Kasane

She even has her favourite french bread. she is a vocaliod who gets annoyed when people don't share their bread with her because she loves it so much. Isn't the wig just perfect for this character? I do wonder how the curls stay in all day, my last curly wig went a bit straight after the last time I wore it.

Solaire of Astora from Dark souls

PRAISE THE SUN!

Last but not least my favourite costume I saw at the convention

Enderman from Minecraft

This enderman had glowing eyes which when I saw it scared the life out of me getting flashbacks from my very frist time in Minecraft I saw this creature through the hole in my dirt shelter it had just removed a block from. (before they stopped Endermen from taking certain blocks)

Enderman even had a giant dirt block which was ready to be signed by all of the special guests. :) Here it is being signed by Jackocalypse who was one of the special guests at the event. Jack runs a YouTube channel about cosplay and fashion which can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/user/JackocalypseOfficial

This design was drawn originally with
Anchor colours in my program. Use anchor threads to get the closest
match. I used a conversion chart to get the DMC numbers.

Please let me know if any colours are
off and I will amend them in the chart.

This is a cross stitch design of DJ Pon3 spinning disks on her DJ deck. This design has quite a bit of grey in it but it is certainly made up for by the wonderful bright electric blue in her mane and tail.

DJ Pon3 and characters from My little Pony: Friendship is Magic belong to Hasbro. This is fan art for other cross stitching fans of the show to share.I claim no rights to the character.